A former team-mate of David Beckham was caught with thousands of pounds of stolen whisky in the Highlands, a court heard.
Kevin Magee, who played for Preston North End alongside Beckham, as well as Dundee, Montrose, Partick Thistle and Livingston, stole the malts from St Andrew’s and Dalwhinnie earlier this year.
Yesterday, the 46-year-old was jailed for 16 months at Inverness Sheriff Court by Sheriff Margaret Neilson who said Magee was “a professional shoplifter from 2015 to 2016”.
She made the comment after Magee’s lawyer Kevin Dugan detailed his client’s career as a professional footballer.
Magee admitted both thefts and a list of previous convictions, including one in the High Court.
He had received a jail sentence previously for whisky thefts in Oban.
Fiscal depute Roderick Urquhart told the court that the first theft, involving a rare bottle of 1953 Glenfarclas single malt worth £8,000 to £10,000 was stolen from Luvians Bottle Shop in St Andrews on June 18.
Mr Urquhart said: “The shop is apparently a fine wine retailer whose owners describe it as being ‘rammed to the rafters with some of the rarest and finest whiskies, wines and champagnes as well as a great spread of many other alcoholic delights’.
“A recording from the closed circuit television system on June 18 showed Magee placing a bottle of whisky up his jumper and leaving the shop without paying for it.”
He said Magee was identified on June 22 and police caught up with him the following day when officers stopped a car on the A9 near Aviemore.
“They searched the car and from the boot a number of bottles of whisky, the majority Dalwhinnie Malt Whisky, were recovered and the occupants of the car were detained.
“A subsequent stock check at the Dalwhinnie Distillery shop, which is about 25 miles south of where the car was stopped, established that 14 of the bottles of whisky recovered from the car, valued at £1,230, were missing from the shop.”
Mr Dugan said Magee could have played for Blackburn Rovers but a diabetes diagnosis and a broken leg put an end to a big money transfer from Preston North End.
He said the Broxburn father, who had chosen the high-value whisky “by chance”, had been visited in prison by his four daughters.
They had told him “this has to stop”. Mr Dugan added: “He is determined not to commit further offences.”
Magee’s sentence was backdated to June 26 when he was remanded in custody.
